Add these to your reading list

Here’s some summer reading for environmental law and policy nerds. Okay, it’s not exactly beach material, but it will keep you up to date on some important issues.

• Elizabeth L. Bennett, Another Inconvenient Truth: The Failure of Enforcement Systems to Save Charismatic Species, Oryx  (subscription required). Dr. Bennett, of the Wildlife Conservation Society, argues that enforcement of restrictions on wildlife trade has failed to keep up with the increasingly sophisticated nature of the illegal wildlife trade.
• Klamath River Expert Panel, Final Report, Scientific Assessment of  Two Dam Removal Alternatives on Chinook Salmon. A panel convened by the Secretary of the Interior as part of the process for deciding whether to remove four large dams on the Klamath River adds a note of caution to what has been a mostly optimistic discussion. The panel concludes that substantial uncertainties remain about the extent to which salmon populations will recover above the furthest upstream of the dams potentially slated for removal.
• U.S. Geological Survey, An Evaluation of the Science Needs to Inform Decisions on Outer Continental Shelf Energy Development in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas, Alaska. Speaking of uncertainty, the USGS finds that there are currently a lot more questions than answers about the impacts of offshore oil drilling and potential oil spills on Arctic landscapes, seascapes, and ecosystems.

Arctic, Klamath River dam removal, offshore drilling, USGS, wildlife, wildlife trade